Immigration/Migration and Settler Colonialism: Doing Critical Ethnic Studies on the U.S
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository American Studies ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 6-19-2019 Immigration/Migration and Settler Colonialism: Doing Critical Ethnic Studies on the U.S. - Mexico Border Raquel A. Madrigal Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/amst_etds Part of the American Studies Commons, Chicana/o Studies Commons, Ethnic Studies Commons, and the Indigenous Studies Commons Raquel Andrea Madrigal Candidate American Studies Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Antonio T. Tiongson Jr., Chairperson Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale Dr. Barbara O. Reyes Dr. Jennifer Rose Nájera i IMMIGRATION/MIGRATION AND SETTLER COLONIALISM: DOING CRITIAL ETHNIC STUDIES ON THE U.S. – MEXICO BORDER By RAQUEL ANDREA MADRIGAL B.A., Ethic Studies, University of California, Riverside, 2009 B.A., Political Science, University of California, Riverside, 2009 M.A., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2012 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy American Studies The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July 2019 ii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my beloved grandparents, Josefina Saénz González and Martín Gardéa González, including the Tohono O’odham people and their land, as well as all Indigenous peoples of the Americas, and to undocumented border crossers, past, present, and future. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to give deep thanks to my dissertation chair Dr. Antonio T. Tiongson Jr. for encouraging me to continue and always giving me perspective, especially in moments when it felt impossible to finish. I am also thankful for his invaluable guidance, feedback and comments in every step of the way while writing my dissertation. Just as well, I am very appreciative of Dr. Jennifer Nez Denetdale for her indispensible feedback and comments throughout my revision process, as well as for her agreeableness to continue with me since my dissertation comprehensive exams. I am profoundly proud and grateful to be trained by both Dr. Denetdale and Dr. Tiongson, and to have taken graduate courses with them since they influenced so much of my scholarship. All the same, I am sincerely thankful to Dr. Barbara O. Reyes and Dr. Jennifer Rose Nájera for their academic support and mentorship throughout my graduate career in addition to their feedback and comments regarding my dissertation process. I am wholeheartedly obliged that my dissertation committee made up such a great team for me. I would also like to recognize Majed Abduallah, my Graduate Resource Center (GRC) dissertation coach, colleague, and friend, and Matthew Irwin, my American Studies friend, writing partner, and colleague. In different, important and needed ways, they both motivated me in moments when I felt lost, held me accountable to our meetings, gave me room to fall apart as well as to come back stronger. I am thankful for Majed’s time management and chapter goal spreadsheets, for his energetic joy and optimism he brought to every coffee meeting, for every Arabic dinner and tea time, and iv zestful conversation beyond dissertation stuff. Just as well, I am grateful Matthew reached out to me when I asked about getting a writing group started because since then, I not only gained a writing partner but also a friend to confide in about life and all stuff academic. Thank you Matthew for every kind way you have shown me acceptance and support, and for helping me come up with a final dissertation title! Moreover, my dissertation journey was filled with optimism because of my sweet friend, mentor, and colleague Farah Nousheen. Farah has taught me so much and has always reminded me of my north star, what is it and where it is, while in her friendship, providing me a place of refuge. In this, I am forever thankful to you Farah. Furthermore, I am thankful to Sandy Rodrigue for being the absolute best American Studies department administrator to me for the past nine years. I appreciate the ease you brought to me in every meeting, in every processing of paperwork, giving me perspective on the many things I would come to you for, for being compassionately available to lend an ear and time in your busy schedule. Also, I am grateful to Dr. Irene Vasquez, Antoinette Rael, Dr. Raji Vallury, Dr. Scarlett Higgins, and Dr. Alex Lubin, for offering me teaching assistantships that allowed me to incur six years of R-1 teaching experience and a living while completing my dissertation. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge and thank my Tía Martha for her immense support. I am forever giving thanks to you, and finding ways to give you my love. Just as well, I give endless thanks and love to my mom Ruth, my dad Joe, my brother Greg and my Tía Coco for always being my backbone, my strength, my ultimate support, and my abundant source of love. Indeed, I would not have been able to start or finish this without you all as my family. Finally, thank you Lessy for being my ultimate canine v companion and joining me on this journey, and to my soul heart, Phillip Franklin Lujan for joining me right at the end, for being my listener as I talked about all my chapters in preparation for my defense, and letting me practice my presentation with you. I love you all. vi IMMIGRATION/MIGRATION AND SETTLER COLONIALISM: DOING CRITIAL ETHNIC STUDIES ON THE U.S. – MEXICO BORDER By RAQUEL ANDREA MADRIGAL B.A., Ethic Studies, University of California, Riverside, 2009 B.A., Political Science, University of California, Riverside, 2009 M.A., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2012 Ph.D., American Studies, University of New Mexico, 2019 ABSTRACT My dissertation argues that the U.S.-Mexico border, and the militarized operations of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security via Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement along the border, including state and federal anti- immigration law, are historically ongoing settler colonial structures of U.S. imperialism, and empire, which are asserted upon, and over Indigenous people and their land. I claim that these anti-immigrant, and anti-migrant structures and operations perpetuate Native dispossession, and removal, as well as deny Native presence and sovereignty. I also contend that undocumented immigrant and migrant justice must be accountable and responsible to Indigenous peoples, their land, and to their struggles for sovereignty. Hence, I illuminate the discrete and overlapping, simultaneous, complex struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, and undocumented immigrant and migrant justice at the border with specific focus on Tohono O’odham land, and the political work of and by O’odham activists in the settler state of Arizona. My methodology draws upon the analytics of “relationality,” and “difference” as used within the field of Critical Ethnic Studies. The conceptual language of “relationality” spotlights the converging points of tension, and vii silences among the differentially, devalued conditions of Indigeneity, and undocumented status within the United States. Moreover, “difference” pinpoints the jointed colonial processes of U.S. racialization at the border as they disjointedly happen among these distinct groups. Further, I ground these analytics within the field of Critical Indigenous Studies by foregrounding Native land, Indigenous presence, and by deploying U.S. settler colonialism as my analytic for interrogating the border. Accordingly, I call my methodology a critical relational framework. In this, I interrogate the differentially related complicated formations of U.S. settler colonialism and imperialism at the U.S.- Mexico border. I examine the inter-related points of struggle between Indigenous sovereignty, and undocumented justice. As such, my methods include textual and visual analysis. My sources of examination are imperial ethnographic texts, the 2015 American film Sicario, the Tohono O’odham Solidarity Across Borders website; and lastly, a 2018 public forum I attended in Albuquerque, New Mexico titled: “Sovereignty and Sanctuary.” viii Table of Contents List of Figures ............................................................................................................................ xi Chapter One .................................................................................................................................. 1 The Practice Of Critical Ethnic Studies: Alternative Framings Of The U.S.-Mexico Border and Undocumented U.S. Immigration and Migration .................................................. 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 1 Interdisciplinary and Cross-disciplinary Interventions ......................................................................... 7 Undoing and Redoing Foundations ........................................................................................................... 14 Theoretical Frameworks: .............................................................................................................................. 21 The Settler Colonial Palimpsest .............................................................................................................................. 21 U.S. Settler Colonialism ...........................................................................................................................................